1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that controls a nozzle group, which is used to form an image on an image forming medium, based on image data.
2. Related Art
In the related art, there is disclosed a line ink jet printer that includes head columns capable of ejecting ink over the entire one row of a sheet in the width direction thereof so that the printing in the width direction of the sheet can be performed without movement of the head. In such a line ink jet printer, a plurality of the head columns are aligned in the transport direction of the sheet so as to implement, for example, an image with high quality or an image with multiple colors.
For example, in such a line ink jet printer, each head column may include a plurality of heads, and a plurality of head controllers for controlling heads (nozzle groups formed in each head) may be provided. In the line ink jet printer, a transmitting processing unit transmits the image data, which are received from an external apparatus, to a plurality of distribution processing units connected to the head controllers, and each of the distribution processing units transmits the image data for controlling the heads to the head controllers.
Herein, since the data transmission rate from the distribution processing unit to the head controller is slower than the data transmission rate from the transmitting processing unit to the distribution processing unit, the distribution processing unit may include a buffer that temporarily stores the data that are to be transmitted to the head controller.
For example, there is disclosed a technique in which a buffer memory is prepared between a transmitting side and a receiving side, and the buffer memory is controlled to be used in accordance to the processing rate of the receiving side and the transmission rate of the transmitting side, so that the transmission time can be prevented from increasing and so that the memory can be effectively used (for example, refer to JP-A-6-314254).
In the line ink jet printer, the image data are transmitted to a plurality of the head controllers. However, in the case where necessary data are transmitted to the head controllers, the image data to the head controller as the transmitting destination may not be received by the distribution processing unit or the head controllers.
Therefore, before the image data are transmitted, a distribution processing unit that relays the data to the head controller as the transmitting destination needs to check whether or not the image data can be received.
In this manner, at the time of transmitting the image data, if the check as to whether or not the image data can be received starts, a time is taken until the check as to whether or not the image data can be received is completed. Accordingly, there is a problem in that communication efficiency deteriorates.